Talk:Blake Belladonna/@comment-32220816-20190819030804/@comment-4010415-20190819221930
Although Blake fell out of my favorites list years ago, I'm gonna lay this out here because too many people don't actually take a look at her life and what the writers have conveyed to us through implications placed in characters' dialogue. Like you, MaxIrvaron, they go "Oh, Blake was a rich princess all along, and she's just been a whiny entitled brat pretending to be a victim since day 1", and that's actually not a correct way to view her character. We'll go through her history chronologically: In Black and White, when explaining the White Fang to Sun, Blake states that she was practically born into the White Fang and had been participating in protests and boycotts along with the rest of the White Fang. The episode even shows us imagery of Blake as a small child holding up a sign at a protest. This tells us that life as a White Fang member was all she knew at the time, that she grew up developing a strong passion for fighting against mistreatment of her people. She also states that the leader (Ghira) stepped down from his position 5 years prior to Volume 1. In Volume 1, she was 17 years old, which means Ghira stepped down when she was 12. That is hardly an age where you're going to make the best decisions, especially when those decisions involve a huge change like leaving behind literally the only life you have ever known for your entire 12 years of existence. As Phantomlink stated, the Belladonna family most likely did not live in that giant mansion before Ghira stepped down as the White Fang's leader because he did not become chieftan of Kuo Kuana until after he stepped down as leader. This fact is explicitly stated by Corsac Albain in the episode Menagerie. He says, and I quote: "The White Fang's tactics are admittedly more aggressive since you stepped down as High Leader and became Chieftain of Menagerie." This explicitly says that Ghira became chieftan after stepping down as the White Fang's leader. Considering the layout and architecture that we see in Kuo Kuana, with that mansion being literally the only big house in the village, it's pretty safe to say that the mansion is for the chieftan, not a home that has been in the Belladonna family since Blake's childhood. In A Much Needed Talk, while apologizing to Ghira, Blake says: "You were right. I shouted at you and yelled at you. But you were right. I called you cowards! I should have left the White Fang with you and Mom. I should've listened to you, and I'm sorry." Remember what I said about how Blake grew up participating in protests with the White Fang and developed a passion for what the White Fang was doing, since that was the only life she knew. What is implied by Blake's dialogue here is that, when Ghira and Kali decided to leave the White Fang, Blake felt that they were being cowards, running away from the fight to live in a cushy mansion in peaceful Kuo Kuana. That is why she did not leave with them. She considered that to be running away from the fight. Compound this with the fact that Adam was there since very early on, developing a relationship with Blake, manipulating her, using her love for him, and telling her that everything that he was doing was right and was for the good of their people, all while hiding the fact that he had begun murdering innocent humans. We even see some of this manipulation in the Adam Character Short: ---- Adam: I don't know. I'm out there fighting for us, and when you fight, people get hurt. What, do you want me to just abandon our cause? Like your parents? Blake: (worried) No! I'm not saying that! I... I don't know. Adam: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought them up. I just get scared when it feels like you don't believe in me anymore. ---- First, Adam puts himself on a pedestal as a hero, telling her that he's out there "fighting for us". Following that, he excuses the deaths of innocent humans as accidents and battle casualties that just sort of happen when you're in a fight. Then, he brings up Ghira and Kali, playing on how Blake felt that her parents were cowards who abandoned the cause, while accusing her of starting to do the same. Blake recoils from this accusation and tries to assure him that she's not abandoning the White Fang's cause. This was a chain that helped keep her tied to the White Fang - tied to him. She feared that leaving would mean she's abandoning the fight for equality and would also make her just like her "cowardly" parents. Hell, maybe this is why she had this "I always run away" complex that she kept beating herself up over. After everything, she still ended up leaving, "abandoning", fleeing in "cowardice", which made her hate herself. After Blake gives the response Adam is looking for, he apologizes and says "I shouldn't have brought them up", even though he brought her parents up for a specific, manipulative reason. He knew what he was doing, but in order to calm Blake down and smooth over the way he hurt her and maintain the bond he had with her - the chain he had put around her - he explained it all away as "I'm sorry. I just get scared when it feels like you don't believe in me anymore." This paints him as someone who is vulnerable who Blake can empathize with, and it also paints her as causing him pain, which makes her feel bad and makes her want to comfort him. He attempts to deter her from continuing to make accusations of him intentionally killing innocent humans by making her feel bad for bringing it up in the first place. He attacks her and her insecurities in order to make her vulnerable, then acts like she was the one who attacked him, thus making her feel guilty, as if the whole thing was her fault. It is quite literally exactly as she explained to Yang in The Coming Storm: "Adam's strong, but his real power comes from control. He used to get in my head, make me feel small. But now I see he just wanted to pull me down to his size." In doing so, he trapped her in the White Fang for 5 years, until he finally slipped up in the Black Trailer, giving her undeniable evidence that he could no longer blind her to. When asked about the innocent crew members, Adam waved it off with "What about them?" Adam was too in the moment on that mission, and that response he gave her was a mistake. Blake isn't some pampered princess who brought all of her problems on herself. She was a child who was afraid to leave behind a fight she was passionate about and was manipulated into staying by an emotional abuser who gave her a complex about leaving.